


Did she see something more?

by Afeni



Series: She and I [1]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-16 16:21:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28959390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Afeni/pseuds/Afeni
Summary: Tifa disagrees with the other members of the Avalanche about the way the organization works, so she leaves the scene to vent her feelings. Her legs take her to Sector 8, where she accidentally runs into a woman selling flowers. Part 1 of She and I series.
Relationships: Aerith Gainsborough/Tifa Lockhart, Tifa Lockhart & Cloud Strife, Zack Fair/Aerith Gainsborough
Series: She and I [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2124063
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	Did she see something more?

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Hän näki enemmän](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/747921) by Afeni. 



> I wrote this fic in Finnish in spring 2020. While I understand English rather well, I’m not really confident of my writing skills in that language. So, I used Google Translate to get “the base translation” for the fic and fixed issues it had. And, oh boy, there were many. I hope I found all of them but there could still be some.
> 
> I wanted to try this with a short story, because I have written a novel length story about Tifa and Rude in Finnish and I wanted to see, if translating like this is possible. I’m well aware that automatic translations aren’t the best way to do this, but it’s probably the only way for me.
> 
> If you are a Finn, I highly recommend that you should read the original story.

The door of 7th Heaven slammed shut. Harder than I meant. My feet tucked down the stairs to the hard-packed sandy street. Corners of my eyes tried to get wet, but I wiped them with my hand. I had to take a deep breath. It would have been better to even stop for breathing, but my feet pushed forward. Ahead. Ahead. To the station and to the train leading to the upper level of Sector 8. I did not know if some people starred after me. I crashed into the bench just as the train jerked off the station.

A whirlwind of thoughts swirled in my head that did not wanted to calm down, even as I tried to relax and closed my eyes for a moment.

_“I already investigated it. The bomb doesn’t have to destroy the entire reactor to shut it down,” Jessie said._

_Barret crossed his arms and nodded. Wedge's gaze shone in a strange way. In a different way than ever before. Biggs looked more insecure. I got up from the table and pressed my palm against the wooden board. My fingers swept the pit that numerous pots had slowly consumed into it._

_“A lot of people live near Mako reactors. People who can die if something goes wrong. The Avalanche is not a terrorist organization, although Shinra wants to say so.”_

_I emphasized every word, but Jessie gave me a look that did not require words to support it. I heard her voice in my mind._ Don't fuss now. Let us take care of this. _I shook my head at her._

_“Jessie can do it. It doesn’t go wrong,” Wedge said._

_“I think we’d do well to go through all the possible chains of events yet, because there may be factors here that we don’t—” Biggs started, and I just had time to nod to him as Barret slammed his fist on the table so hard that the board popped against my hands._

_“Jessie has thought about this and shown her bombing plan to me. It's bomb-proof!”_

_"We cannot sacrifice innocent people!" I said._

_“No one is innocent in this war,” Jessie said. "I thought you were involved in this, that your background -"_

_"I'm involved with all my heart in Avalanche. I don’t want to see Shinra destroy everything we love.”_

_“Then there’s no problem,” Barret said._

_"If people die because of us, that's the problem."_

_“No one dies. The plan is perfect.”_

_I stared at Barret. He had his stubborn look. The hands crossed again, which was an achievement in itself with the weapon that replaced the right arm. Only sunglasses were missing, with them his wall would have been perfect. My throat squeezed, my breathing became heavy and my field of vision began to quiver. No, not in this company. I was stronger._

_My legs worked before my mind got along, and the door of 7th Heaven slammed shut. Harder than I meant._

The train pounded at a steady pace from the slums of the Seven Sector. The identity check swept through the cart with red lines, but I barely paid attention to it. I rubbed my temples and focused on staring out the window, even though there was only darkness.

It had been foolish to rushed out this way. Not like me. I wanted to think I was calm and sensible, accepting. I am not a drama queen. My chest was still squeezing as I thought what the bomb might do.

The train slowed down. _Arriving at Sector 8_ , the announcement said in the same voice as on each train. The voice of a faceless woman, probably someone from Shinra. The blackness behind the train window changed into rows of buildings above which the evening sky could be seen. The stars were indistinguishable as they were covered under the orange night light of Midgar. The view was mixed with a green hint of Mako.

Twitch and stop. People got up from their seats. I followed suit and walked to the station now at a much slower pace than I had arrived on the train. The rush flowed somewhere on the tracks as my shoes hit the cobblestones. Some of the hair had escaped from my dark brown ponytail and the wind swept them to my face.

I pushed my hair out of my field of vision and let my gaze run through the landscape. People here were better dressed than in the slums. The scent was more pleasant too. Now a little damp but not stale, the air maybe a little fresher. Admittedly not at all like in the mountains of Nibelheim.

My heart pounded. I immediately pushed the memories aside. I could not stop at them now. I could not stop at all, so I set out to leap off the station. To wander aimlessly through the streets with several cafes. Full of people, whose face had no worries at all. People who did not count their gills when they bought another pint. People for whom tomorrow was a new opportunity, not a struggle.

I stopped at a corner and took a breath. I absorbed the coolness and let it filled me. There was magic in the evenings and nights that was not reached during the day when the rough light revealed every detail. Twilight, on the other hand, wrapped everything above a veil of mystery and made the world softer.

"Are you lost?"

The sound was friendly, even soft, but it had a nasal tone. Customer service voice. I turned around and forced a smile on my face. The green gaze examined me. As the woman turned her head, her long bangs, divided on both sides, waved for a moment to cover her eyes, but soon her eyes watched me again. The light brown braid swinged in her neck, emphasizing the femininity of the delicate red lips. I had not seen this woman before, but a basket of flowers on her arm told me enough.

“I guess you could express it that way too,” I replied and did not even know why.

"Where are you going?"

The woman pressed the flower basket against her stomach, and the hems of her pink dress followed the movement. I quickly looked up back into her eyes, where curiosity radiated. It was impossible to say which part of it was genuine and which was carefully considered. On the other hand, I was not a potential customer, so she had no reason to use her sale tactics for me.

As I changed the weight from one leg to the other, and the woman mirrored my gesture. The braid swung from side to side, and her head turned obliquely. A smile danced on her lips.

“Not really anywhere,” I replied.

“Oh, then you’re really lost,” the woman said, smiling. "Sometimes the right path is found when you wander far enough, and sometimes you have to go far to see close."

I blinked my eyes and smiled again. Something in this woman made me smile genuinely. She made my curled upwards instinctively.

"You’re probably right,” I said.

"Do you want a cup of coffee?"

The woman leaned closer to me, and the scent of flowers flooded against my face. I had to gather all my willpower not to close my eyes and take a deep breath. I did not even remember the last time I smelled something as sweet.

"Aren't you in the middle of work?" I asked and tried to keep my face still. It was hard when the scent of lilies exuded from the flower basket. The scent, which did not suit the urban environment of the Sector 8 at all, not to mention the slums.

"A break would be nice."

I shrugged. Of course, I could measure the streets alone all evening or even the night, but it would hardly make me feel better. Instead, a friendly chatting at the corner table of a nice cafe might be a whole other thing. That would feel normal. Something that had disappeared from my life long ago. Besides, I could not say I would have spent time in cafes with girls ever. My childhood friends were all boys, and Jessie was not the type who I could ask to have coffee with me. Coffee dates among women were things that happened to others.

“Maybe I could use a coffee break too,” I finally replied. Far after too long a silence, but the woman looked as if she had not bothered at all about my quietness.

“I know a nice place. I go there sometimes to sell flowers to customers,” the woman said, pointing to a side street. "By the way... I'm Aerith. I didn't remember to introduce myself earlier.”

"Tifa."

Aerith nodded at me, and her forehead hair swinged again. There was a light laugh hovered on her lips as she steered me away from the hustle and bustle of the main street. The houses were so close together that the alley did not look outright inviting, but 7th Heaven was not in the best possible area either. Still, the bar was more of a home than the apartment building I had been settled into.

A bell tinged as Aerith pushed open the cafe door. The place was lit by lanterns instead of Mako energy lamps. It was hard to even imagine such a place on the upper levels, where much more Mako energy was utilized than in the slums. My heart jumped, there was still hope.

Maybe Aerith had read my previous thoughts as she guided us to the corner table. The waitress immediately rushed to take our order and carried the cups in front of us quite quickly. There was air of good service and peace in the cafe. I did not want to know how expensive the coffee would be.

I crossed my legs and leaned my elbows on the table. I pressed my chin against hands and a curl of hair ran past my cheek. I did not bother to swipe it back. It was so short that it never stayed put. I breathed warm room air filled with the rich scent of coffee. It mixed with the summer glow swaying from Aerith’s flower basket, which was almost more intense than the dark drink in front of me. Lightness hovered over me and dragged me along as if I had been drinking alcohol instead of coffee, even though I had not even tasted my drink yet.

Aerith spun a spoon in her latte and seemed to have disappeared to another planet. The gaze of the green eyes wandered somewhere beyond reality, but still smile did not leave her lips.

"Stagnant, quiet moments are the best, aren't they?" Aerith asked, and her gaze brightened again. The green gaze stuck to mine, and something warm flowed to the bottom of my stomach.

“Sometimes they are,” I replied, finally lifting the cup of coffee to my lips. Dark and tasty. The products of this cafe were made from quality beans.

"What do you do for a living? You don’t actually look like you’re working here in the Sector 8,” Aerith said. The spoon was still spinning in her latte.

“I work in a bar at the Sector 7,” I replied. I almost already opened my mouth but decided at the last minute not to say anything about Avalanche. I could never know who was listening in the shadows, and besides, I did not know Aerith at all.

"Sounds exciting. I sometimes go to bars myself to sell flowers, but I usually come here to the upper levels.”

I nodded. Certainly, flowers got a better trade here. I could not even imagine our customers buying a bouquet of lilies. When I did not say anything, Aerith started talking about her customers and the nightlife in the Sector 8, which sounded quite lively. But drunks were drunks even when they were rich, and people needed places to relax. It was easy to identify with her stories.

"Well tell me, Tifa, do you have someone special in your life?" Aerith asked suddenly and leaned forward. The elbows dug into the tablecloth and her latte swayed. Her lips curled to a smile the way that made my heart flutter.

"No, not really."

_The first months in the slums were the heaviest. I had imagined that in Midgar, Soldiers would appear everywhere, but you did not actually see them in the streets. Still, my gaze fetched blond hair, and I turned my head as soon as one flashed in the corner of my eye. Although the years had rolled by and we had never been immensely close, I wanted to think that our paths could still cross._

_Months passed and our paths did not cross. Barret hired me to 7th Heaven, life settled down, I got into Avalanche, helped people in the slums, built a community where everyone cared for each other, I found my place, I found my purpose, I found my own life. I never found him. Maybe he had died in some battle before he had time to rise to the level of Sephiroth. Maybe that was better. After all, we all knew that Sephiroth was not the kind of hero he had been painted in the headlines in my childhood._

_One day I realized I had not looked for him in the crowds for the longest time. I focused on what was here and now. That was good._

"And now you lied." There was no accusation in Aerith's words. She laughed but got soon serious. “I had one. A Soldier.”

The word pounded in my chest. The pounding was followed by such a throbbing that I heard nothing else for a moment. The voices in the bar disappeared, even though people were still having their own conversations around us. I swallowed two times and took a deep breath. I should not let my imagination fly. The past was gone, and it was better to focus on the future. And yet the thought tickled my mind downright embarrassingly.

“But he disappeared five years ago, so no more of that,” Aerith said, waving her hand at the air.

A thousand questions raced to my lips at once, but I swallowed each one. Aerith had no obligation to answer me, there was no need to say anything more. We were just two women who had met by chance in an evening in Midgar. We would probably never meet again after this. Still, I wanted to… If I did not ask but just lead the discussion to the right direction… There was nothing wrong in that. Such was only considered polite. If I kept talking, no embarrassing silence would arise.

"A Soldier?" I repeated. "I knew one who came to Midgar years ago to become a Soldier."

“Really? Did he succeed?”

"I do not know. I have not heard from him in a long time nor have seen him in years. I wish we had met again, but…”

"In my experience, the Soldiers are terribly busy… I could have stayed staring at those blue eyes forever, but there was never enough time."

My chest jumped again. I was fairly sure my heart wanted to throb out through my throat. Would it be possible…?

“But that’s about it. It’s not worth longing for the Soldiers,” Aerith continued before I had time to say anything. She reached out her hand over the table and grabbed my wrist. “Believe me, you deserve something better. The world still has something to offer you.”

"Yes, it is better to leave childhood friends as childhood friends…"

"I have heard that childhood friends are special though," Aerith said. She tilted her head like she was thinking. "Maybe it's still better to keep your eyes open for opportunities."

"You're definitely right."

Aerith smiled again. She smiled a lot. The pink lips curled sweetly, seductively even, while the long lashes over the green eyes fluttered. Those eyes were as deep as the world itself. You could almost thought that there was Lifestream swirling in them.

“I think there are plenty of opportunities for you,” Aerith said.

The words floated in my ears as warm fingers brushed my wrist. Should I have jerked my hand farther? Maybe, but I could not even move. There was something hypnotic, soothing, and stopping about Aerith.

I had to concentrate so I could grab the coffee cup with my free hand. It trembled against my lower lip as I lifted it up. The drink had cooled, and the taste refracted in a more bitter direction, but I downed most of the coffee. The cup slammed against the table a little harder than was appropriate at the same moment as Aerith let go of my hand.

I watched how long fingers snatched a yellow lily from the flower basket. Aerith got up, walked around the table over to me. Her scent of flowers danced over me and enveloped me in pleasant memories of a time when I sometimes went to pick flowers from the fields near Nibelheim. My eyelids slid shut and I swam in the scent.

Aerith's fingers brushed my hair, my ears. The flower slid behind my ear.

“Perfect,” Aerith whispered straight into my ear and breathing swept the skin of my neck. As the cold and hot shivers ran down my neck all the way to my toes, I opened my eyes. The green gaze was closer than ever before, and yet I could not get my eyes off her slightly open lips. No lipstick, the glow was Aerith’s own, and was highlighted by a colorless lip balm. Like a pink flower bud that was about to open to its full glow.

“A lily should bring you good luck. I hope you find what you are looking for.”

Aerith's whisper could barely be heard, but still it lifted goosebumps to my skin. The voice wiped my cheek, the heat swept my ear. My heart continued it bouncing.

“Maybe we’ll meet again,” Aerith added and straightened up. She grabbed her basket of flowers and waved her hand goodbye. She had disappeared from the cafe before I had time to properly realize that she was really gone.

"The payment, please."

The waitress appeared as if from scratch next to me.

I glanced at the untouched latte and my half drank coffee. A smile climbed to my lips, though I realized I should have reacted differently. My stomach itched. Aerith had used me, but the anger did not pulsate inside me. Instead, even previous despair had swung away with Aerith.

I checked what I needed to pay from the receipt and counted the appropriate number of gills on the table. I did not wait for the change but rushed into the damp twilight. I did not even see the hem of Aerith’s the pink dress.

My shoes creaked as I headed my steps back to the station. I would still get to the last train of the evening. I already knew I would not find Aerith anymore, so I might as well return home. Maybe she was never there.

When the train arrived at the Sector 7, I was no longer sure of anything. The evening was foggy. Maybe I had not really met anyone, maybe I was just sitting alone ventilating my mind. When I touched my ear, I understood the truth. Aerith had really passed my life. Maybe our meeting had meant to happen. A reminder that there was still a lot of good in the world to fight for.

No one else got out of the cart, and the station was quiet as I stepped into the orange light and was going to head towards the home. I had stepped down the stairs when I noticed someone leaning on the bench. Not sitting on it but leaning on it. A young man laid on the ground with a huge sword in front of him, dangling his head between his shoulders and leaning his back on the bench seat. I had not seen him before, and by nature he looked like a soldier. Maybe one of Shinra’s ranks have had too much fun and zonked out.

For a moment I thought I would pass the man. Shinra had not brought anything good into my life, so I was not in debt. Still, my legs were nailed to the ground. I stared at the light spiked hair, and my chest flicked again. I could not help but squat next to the man.

"Hey, are you okay?"

His head rose, and fuzzy blue-green eyes swayed as they looked at me. I was not sure if the man really saw me. His lips tried to form words, but I could not understand. Words got stuck in my throat as tears popped into my eyes and blurred the view.

Aerith had known something. I was sure of it.


End file.
